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If you have children in the Upper Arlington schools, spring break started March 18.

If you're in the Groveport Madison schools, however, you won't get your week off until the last
week of April.

If you're anywhere else in Franklin County, your break is somewhere between those two.

For local districts, setting the dates of the time-honored break is more art than science.

"Ours has traditionally been tied to something - it's been tied to the date of Easter," said
Larry Ricchi, supervisor of support services for Groveport Madison.

Because Easter is linked to the first full moon after the Northern Hemisphere's vernal equinox,
that means spring break in Groveport Madison moves around a lot.

For Ricchi, the timing of the break isn't as important as a week without classes to do any major
maintenance work needed on Groveport Madison's buildings and grounds, he said.

"If you try to pick (a week) based on weather, the parents beat you up constantly (complaining
that) you had spring break and it wasn't even warm," Ricchi said.

In Upper Arlington, officials use a simpler method that doesn't involve full moons: Their
schedule mirrors Ohio State University's.

"Candidly, it's been our tradition to follow OSU, particularly because of the large number of
(university) employees who live in Upper Arlington," said district spokesman Dan Donovan. "I think
forever, as far as I recall, it's always been the spring break of Ohio State."

Upper Arlington then also throws in the Friday before OSU's spring break begins. It's not
connected to any tradition but simply because "there was precious little going on at Ohio State
that Friday," because most finals-week testing is over, Donovan said.

For the bulk of Franklin County's districts, the week of March 28 through April 1 served as
spring break, according to the Educational Service Center of Central Ohio.

Whitehall schools won't start spring break until April 18 because of a construction project,
said Bart Anderson, the service center's superintendent. At other districts, such as Columbus City
Schools, teachers unions decide when the break is, per their contracts, Anderson said. Columbus is
taking off the week of April 25.

Worthington schools would use a committee of teachers, administrators, parents and students to
set the date, usually a couple of years in advance, said Damon Asbury, a former superintendent who
now is director of legislative services for the Ohio School Boards Association.

The decision is "pretty much a local one, whatever makes the most sense for our community,"
Asbury said.

Another factor is state testing, Asbury said.

"You don't want the kids coming back right off of vacation and taking the test," he said.